explain xkcd:Advertise Here

Explain xkcd is a wiki dedicated to explaining the often esoteric and obscure references in xkcd, one of the most popular webcomics. Given the breadth of the science, technology and culture references used in the comic, many viewers find at least a few punchlines to sail over their heads, so they resort to explain xkcd for a layman-friendly guide to the strips' contents.

As xkcd is an English webcomic, our viewers mostly speak English. Our distribution of male, college educated users is higher than the average for sites on the internet. Approximately a third of our 1.7 million monthly page hits come from Google search results, another ~10% coming from social media recommendations with rest coming from return visits and newcomers binge-reading on our extensive back-catalogue.

Explain xkcd makes it easy for prospective advertisers like your company to buy advertising space. After we manually approve you as an advertiser, you can bid a daily price and gain access to our sidebar ad space until you are out-bid, your funds run out, or your ad campaign ends. You can bid on our advertising space here.

Advertising Guidelines

Ads must be acceptable for general audiences or generally "safe for work". Ads that contain or lead to any sort of potentially objectionable material—nudity, sexual content, profanity, excessive violence, substance use/abuse (including alcohol and tobacco), hatred or intolerance to any group of individuals, gambling, etc.—will be immediately rejected.

Bidders who repeatedly submit objectionable ads or sites may be permanently banned, meaning all future bids will be immediately rejected.

Online dating services and "hook up" sites, especially those with open comments, profiles, or forums with little or no content restrictions;

Online or offline gambling in any form, including "meta" sites about gambling but not offering gambling services themselves;

Sites dedicated to endorsing or promoting political views or endorsing political candidates, or sites where the majority of content is political;

"Warez" or download sites hosting or promoting the illegal distribution of copyrighted content;

Sites containing viruses, exploits, and other malware or promoting, encouraging, or enabling the use of such exploits.

Webcomics, blogs, and podcasts looking to advertise here should have a minimum of 30 updates (i.e one month of daily updates, 2-3 months of tri-weekly updates, seven months of weekly updates, etc.) in their archives before bidding.

Product pages are welcome so long as we are able to confirm that you do offer a legitimate product.

Make sure your site actually works. If we attempt to walk through your archives to review your content and we can't get to your 2000-update archive because the navigation links don't work, don't expect your bid to be approved.

We reserve the right to reject any ad from any advertiser at our sole discretion. However, if you ask us politely and agree to respect our reasons, we'll probably tell you why you were rejected.

We only sell 160x600 "skyscraper" ads, embedded in the left sidebar below the fold. Due to the layout of our explanation pages, our advertisements are placed next to the explanation for the vast majority of all comics, providing your brand with high visibility for your money. You can bid on our advertising space here.